Nintendo Stumbles With 3DS: If you were one of the (relatively few) people who bought a Nintendo 3Ds in the first months after its ballyhooed release, you might be upset to learn that you could have paid much less if you had just waited a few months.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Nintendo’s handheld game console 3DS and its game titles are displayed at a Tokyo electric shop.

Faced with unexpectedly low sales, Nintendo slashed the price of the handheld device to $170, from $250. Nintendo also cut its profit forecast for the year by a whopping 80%. Investors, understandably, are alarmed.

The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield says Nintendo’s troubles stem from Apple’s successes. The rise in smartphones and tablets means more people are buying Angry Birds for $1 or so than spending money on Nintendo’s more expensive games. [WSJ, New York Times]

Google TV Returns Outpace Sales: Well, this seems like a bad sign: “Consumers dislike Google TV so much that they are now giving the product back.” That’s how John Letzing starts off his article in the Journal today.

The stark evaluation is based on statements from Logitech, which makes the Revue set-top box and keyboard built on Google’s TV technology. In its earnings release, the company noted that revenue for the product was “slightly negative” as more units were returned than purchased. Logitech is going to lower the price of the box to $99 from $249. [WSJ, Engadget]

Twitter Testing New Ads: The microblogging service’s efforts to build an advertising business model are rolling right along. The latest offering? Allowing brands to send out “promoted tweets” to people who follow them, and make sure that their followers see the tweet near the top of their screen even if they log on hours after the tweet was sent. [WSJ, Twitter]

How Microblogging Is Eroding Chinese Censorship: The New York Times takes a look today at the posts on Sina Weibo before and after a high-speed train crash that left dozens dead and raised questions about government oversight of the train system. “The very nature of weibo posts, which spread faster than censors can react, makes weibos beyond easy control. And their mushrooming popularity makes controlling them a delicate matter,” the authors write. [New York Times]

Apple’s Cash on Hand Surpasses U.S. Treasury’s: The headline pretty much sums it up. But here are the numbers: The U.S. Treasury’s closing balance as of Wednesday was $73.768 billion. Apple’s cash on hand is $76.156 billion, as of its latest earnings release. Sigh. [Fortune]